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Puchion Choice : Feature

Kaifeck Murder

Esther Gronenborn

Germany2009 86 min 35mm C International Premiere

Synopsis

Freelance photographer Marc arrives in the small Bavarian village of Kaifeck with his son Tyll. While enjoying a quiet life in this quaint rural village, which civilization seems to have overlooked, Marc comes upon an abandoned house in the woods. After discovering that a family was murdered in the house around 1920, he is visited each night by visions and hallucinations that propel him on an investigation into this mysterious case. Based on a real-life murder that occurred in Kaifeck during the 1920s, this film weaves dream-like visuals around the eerie image of Kaifeck, a deeply sinister village in the German countryside. The oft-used device of the murder of an entire family leads to an unexpected twist in the movie’s second half, resulting in a unique tension between reality and fantasy, memory and oblivion, truth and lies. Unlike your typical Hollywood horror movie, which relies primarily on generic conventions, Kaifeck Murder fully demonstrates the capacity of European horror to evoke a pervasive air of terror. Benno Fürmann, a German character actor of growing international renown, gives an outstanding performance in his role as Marc. (Jin PARK)

Diretor

Esther Gronenborn

Studied at the University of Television & Film in Munich, specializing in documentaries and shorts. Her short films Alaska.de (2000) win a ‘Film Award in Gold’ of ‘German Film Awards’ . Kaifeck Murder (2009) is her debut feature film.

Credit

Producer
Esther GRONENBORN